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The potato is a root vegetable native to the Americas,
a starchy tuber of the plant Solanum tuberosum, and the plant
itself is a perennial in the nightshade family, Solanaceae.
[2]

Wild potato species, originating in modern-day Peru, can be

found throughout the Americas, from Canada to southern Chile.
[3] The potato

was originally believed to have been domesticated by Native

Americans independently in multiple locations,[4] but later
genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild
species traced a single origin for potatoes

, in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme

northwestern Bolivia. Potatoes
were domesticated approximately 7,000–10,000 years ago there,
from a specie

s in the Solanum brevicaule complex.[5][6][7] In
the Andes region of South America, where the species
is indigenous, some close relatives of the potato are
cultivated.
Potatoes were introduced to Europe from the Americas in the
second half of the 16th century by the Spanish. Today they
are a staple food in many parts of the world and an integral
part of much o

f the world's food supply. As of 2014, potatoes were the

world's fourth-largest food crop after maize (corn), wheat,
and rice.[8]
Following millennia of selective breeding, there are now over
5,000 different types of potatoes.[6] Over 99% of presently
cultivate

d potatoes worldwide descended from varieties that originated

in the lowlands of south-central Chile.[9][10]
 2.

The importance of the potato as a food source and culinary

ingredient varies by region and is still changing. It remains
an essential crop in Europe, especially Northern and Eastern
Europe, where pe

r capita production is still the highest in the world, while

the most rapid expansion in production over the past few
decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia, with China
and India leading the world in overall production as of 2018.
Like the tomato, the potato is a nightshade in the
genus Solanum, and the vegetative and fruiting parts of the
potato contain the toxin solanine which is dangerous for
human consumption

. Normal potato tubers that have been grown and stored

properly produce glycoalkaloids in amounts small enough to be
negligible to huma

n health, but if green sections of the plant (namely sprouts

and skins) are ex

posed to light, the tuber can accumulate a high enough

concentration of glycoalkaloids to affect human health.[11]
[12]